


Episode 30 - Fighting Monsters

by stgjr



Series: "The Power of a Name" Series 3 - "Time Lord Penitent" [31]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Multi-Fandom, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, Power Rangers Time Force, Power Rangers Zeo
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Multiple Crossovers, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 02:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11500176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stgjr/pseuds/stgjr
Summary: While looking for a Crack in the Multiverse, our narrator and his Companions wind up working with several different teams of Power Rangers to investigate a series of technology thefts by the minions of the long-defeated Machine Empire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on July 13th, 2015.

It was the dream again.  
  
"You must try harder," the first figure insisted. I found myself facing the First Doctor. "You don't have time to waste, child."  
  
"The answers are out there," the Second added.  
  
The Third Doctor came into my vision. "You cannot afford to tarry any longer. You know what's going on."  
  
"The Cracks," I said. "They're getting worse, aren't they?"  
  
"Well, this is just your head, isn't it?" The Fourth Doctor stepped up to me. "So what do you think?" He held up the usual offer. "Jellybaby?"  
  
As it was my dream, this time I suddenly found myself prepared, offering him a small handful of M&Ms in reply. We shared our favorite sweets. "They do seem to be increasing in frequency along my timestream," I remarked.  
  
"Which means that you must learn more," the Fifth Doctor urged. "The consequences of these Cracks is clearly grave."  
  
"Grave indeed!" The Sixth Doctor, taking his place in the assembly, was as boisterous as ever. "Why, if you're anything close to me, you should easily know this!"  
  
"What is your plan, Doctor?", the Seventh asked. "You must have a plan. You must be ahead of this."  
  
I swallowed. "Well, honestly, I'm sort of winging it right now."  
  
"There is too much at stake," the Eighth insisted. "You must do more."  
  
"Everything may rely upon what you decide." The War Doctor appraised me quietly. "And there is so much at stake."  
  
"So, what is next?", the Ninth Doctor inquired. "What's your next trick?"  
  
I turned and turned until I faced the Tenth Doctor. "I need to analyze the Cracks. I need to find a way to get more information from them."  
  
"Oh, right you are on that," the Tenth Doctor agreed. "Going to be tricky, though. Quite tricky. Good thing you've got us, isn't it?"  
  
"But not just us." The Eleventh Doctor came to me again. "Everything you need to know is in here, Doctor." He tapped my temple. "Everything that will tell you what's going on."  
  
"I've tried everything," I insisted.  
  
"Keep trying," was his answer.  
  
I did. Again there was pain. Again, the voice of someone, an American voice, crying out in pain as they were subjected to something. I couldn't tell. And the voices again.  
  
" _....will serve our purpose. It must be done. For... survival._ "  
  
The familiar American voice whimpered, " _Stop, please stop..._ "  
  
Then a third voice, female, spoke up. " _He's not going to last._ "  
  
" _It has to be this one. Without this.... will all fall apart... our people destroyed!_ "  
  
" _But!_ "  
  
" _Do not... decision.... only way!_ " A face came to my vision. There was something familiar about it. I just couldn't place it.  
  
" _...another way! This... small chance..!_ "  
  
The pain spiked so greatly that I cried out in unison with the panicked American voice.  
  
And then my arse hit the floor of the TARDIS.  
  
I sat up and tried to control my breath as I reminded myself of my surroundings. I was okay. I was in my TARDIS and recuperating from a bit of running from some pale fellows in a desert who sprayed chrome on themselves and demanded to be "witnessed", whatever that was about.  
  
As I regained my senses, I thought about the dream. I didn't have them often. And it seemed that every time, a little more leaked through. That first voice, the one giving orders, I _knew_ there was something familiar about that face. I just couldn't focus on it.  
  
Liara came from her room and looked at me. "Is everything all right?"  
  
"Just another dream," I answered. "Just another silly dream."  
  
But I wondered... what if it wasn't? Could there be something more to it, more than my subconscious trying to remind me of the growing issue with the Cracks? I looked with guilt toward Liara and the hall beyond, where the living quarters for my Companions were. Where a young woman from a timeline that never came to be was resting, undoubtedly having her own nightmares about the loved ones who died as she watched.  
  
I wanted to help that alternate Katara. So very much.  
  
But the Cracks. They had haunted me for so long. I needed to figure out what was going on with them.  
  
"I think," I sighed, "that it's time to find another Crack."  
  
  
  
  
After Katara woke up, we were all in the control chamber while I messed with settings. "So, from what you're saying, these Cracks are splits between the worlds, or cosmoses as you call them?", Katara asked.  
  
"Yes," I answered.  
  
"And things can come through them. Usually things from your home cosmos."  
  
"The home cosmos of Gallifrey, yes."  
  
"Then you want to find out what's going on, and that's why we're doing this?"  
  
"Oh yes," I said, while my scanner sought out Cracks. "Nothing so far."  
  
"Why didn't you scan the one from my world?', she asked.  
  
It was a good question. "Because I didn't want anything else to come through." It was not a lie. I just wasn't adding that I was worried about it. I was worried about what else might have already through and if it could use the Cracks like other beings I'd seen. Her very existence was due to the Time Agent who fell through and who somehow died, leaving his vortex manipulator in the hands of the leader of what was left of the Dai Li. And I still wasn't sure how Xuandi learned to use it.  
  
"Hopefully we can find a new Crack," Liara hoped aloud. "There won't be any danger from it."  
  
"Yes. Of course, this also means we must hope my new plans for scanning them will actually work. They've defied them so far." I sighed and almost called it quits for now. There was no sign of a Crack, no sign....  
  
The scanner let out a tone. "A ha! There you are! Thought you could hide, eh?!", I shouted, happy to see my plan had worked. I grabbed the TARDIS controls and started setting the appropriate time space coordinates. When I was done, I yanked back on the main lever. And away we went.  
  
  
  
  
Upon arrival I found that we had landed in a gorgeous California seaside town, with the sunset hanging over the Pacific waters. "Well, scenery's nice at least," Liara noted, stepping out with her holobelt activated to make her look Human. Katara joined us a moment later. She was still waring her water tribe garb, but with a short-sleeved shirt underneath the robe to bare most of her arms. I nodded at them and held up the sonic screwdriver. It scanned but found nothing. "Well, that's odd," I muttered. "I wonder...."  
  
I was about to contemplate that my TARDIS had pulled her usual trick of taking me where I was needed. But I soon got confirmation of this fact from the screaming coming from nearby. We all turned toward it and I ran for it, my Companions behind me. We crested a hill following one of the waterways of the park and found a crowd of civilians fleeing in terror from some humanoid robots. "Oh, robots," I sighed. "Killer robots. This will be..."  
  
Even before I could get my sonic disruptor, Katara shot forward. She swept her arms toward the water way. The water stirred with her movements and with one movement she pulled up quite a bit of water. She made a sound of exertion, one of those "yah!", kind of things, and the water turned to ice and shot into the robots as a rain of sharp icicles. Several started sparking as they were impacted by the ice, even impaled by it.  
  
Liara moved forward now. Her holobelt disguise disappeared as her biotics charged and she let loose a burst of biotic power that kept several of the robots from pursuing more civilians.  
  
I drew out the sonic disruptor by this point and started running it over the approaching gaggle to disrupt whatever circuitry was i them.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Deadlock seals. Oi.  
  
So I swapped to kinetic force, blowing them over, but they kept coming, and i wasn't damaging them. This looked tricky.  
  
Three beams of ruby energy lashed out at the robotic assailants, destroying several beyond repair and causing the rest to pause. I looked back to see three figures cresting the hill. A Caucasian fellow with sandy blond hair was clearly in the lead, flanked to one side by a young woman with hair drawn back into a curly pony-tail and to the other side by a young man of East Asian descent. They wore matching red jackets and similar uniforms and each was holstering what was clearly their energy guns. Hrm. Given the early 21st Century milieu around us, that distinctively narrowed down the possibilities for just what kind of world this was.  
  
I received confirmation when they moved a moment later, reaching for something on their wrists.  
  
Three voices spoke in near unison.  
  
" _Lightspeed Rescue!_ "  
  
Oh. _This_ planet again.  
  
There was a flash of light and they were in uniform suits of white with red, yellow, and blue colors. Their speed was beyond normal Human as they charged around me and plunged into the robots, taking them apart with a combination of martial arts moves and careful use of their energy firearms. They struck me as rather more... organized about it than these teams usually get.  
  
Liara and Katara walked back toward me as their opponents turned to face the graver threat, and promptly got stomped while doing so. "What are they?", Katara asked.  
  
"Power Rangers," I replied. "I'm reasonably certain there's a couple more, in fact." I held up the sonic disruptor and batted down one that decided to go for us again, allowing Liara to blast it apart with a biotic bolt. "I am wondering what these fellows are." I knelt down and started scanning the broken machine.  
  
The fight was soon over and I looked up to see the three Rangers turn back to normal, de-morph, whatever you call it. The sandy-haired fellow walked up and offered me a hand. "I'm Carter Grayson," he said. "Welcome to Mariner Bay."  
  
"Mister Grayson, a pleasure," I answered, taking it. "I'm..."  
  
"You're the Doctor," the Blue Ranger said. He offered his hand as well and introduced himself. "Chad Lee."  
  
"Kelsey Winslow," the young lady added.  
  
"So, my reputation precedes me?", I asked.  
  
"Wes Collins in Silver Hills told us how you saved his team once," Carter said. "And he mentioned the police box."  
  
"Of course. They always mention the police box." I looked about. "Well, which is it this time? Wes was dealing with time-traveling criminals. These are robotic foes. Not sure where from, I'm not often around here."  
  
"I recognize them." Carter looked down at one of the broken ones. "They're called Cogs."  
  
"Cogs?" I blinked. I recognized the reference. "Machine Empire?"  
  
"Yeah." Carter knelt down to give it a moment's closer inspection. "I joined with Tommy Oliver and the other Red Rangers to stop them on the moon several months ago. We defeated the last five of the Machine Empire's generals and stopped them from taking Serpentera. There shouldn't be any Cogs left."  
  
"Presumably someone may have repaired them. So the question is... who is using them?"  
  
"A better question is what they were doing here," Kelsey added.  
  
"Well, they're evil robot minions, presumably they have 'Kill All Organics' in their code somewhere. It seems common for evil robots." I shook my head. "I don't like coincidences though. I'm not here for pleasure. I'm here because..."  
  
I stopped speaking because a distant thunder came to my attention. We all looked toward Mariner Bay's downtown in time to see an explosion plume into the sky.  
  
"There's your answer," Katara said. "This attack was a distraction."  
  
"Well, let's go find out what they were distracting us from, eh?", I suggested. "Everyone to the TARDIS!"  
  
The three Lightspeed Rangers followed us back to the TARDIS, and as they did I mused about yet another diversion from my main task, and the strange timing of it all. But it wasn't like this cosmos was one of the nastier ones. Power Rangers tend to make for, well, pardon the pun... _powerful_ allies, given all of their abilities and the energy they draw from the subspatial energetic flux field they call the morphing grid. We'd deal with whatever silly monster was causing mischief and I'd get back to the business of finding a Crack to examine.  
  
In retrospect? I really, really should have known better.  
  
[MEDIA=youtube]ax4y5iE1TKw[/MEDIA]  
  
  
  
  
I flew the TARDIS directly into the downtown area, a scientific and industrial park from the look of things. Looking at the external screens I noticed the name and asked, "Nasada? Your space program?"  
  
"The lab just opened a few months ago," Carter informed me. "Nasada has been working with Captain Mitchell in developing new power systems for spacecraft."  
  
"Power systems..." I pondered that as I brought us to a landing in front of the damaged building. Police forces were falling back while their weapons showed no effect upon the Cogs, as they were called.  
  
We stepped out of the TARDIS. "Stay back, Doctor, we can handle..."  
  
Before Mister Grayson could finish that, I held my sonic screwdriver out to the nearest fire hydrant. Water erupted from it, which Katara immediately began to bend into a stream that she used to bowl over the Cog footsoldiers. As they fell she froze the water around them to hold them in place.  
  
Liara's biotic aura came to life. She pushed outward and a bolt of biotic energy flew into their midst, becoming a Singularity that took several of them. She tossed another biotic bolt at them that reacted violently with the Singularity, causing an explosion of energy that knocked them all over for Katara to freeze in place.  
  
They hadn't even had time to reach for their morphers. "As you can see, Mister Grayson, we are not entirely helpless ourselves," I remarked.  
  
"And when we are, there's always running," Liara added whimsically, looking at me.  
  
"Oh yes," I agreed. "This traveling typically involves a lot of running."  
  
With the Cogs disabled by freezing, we were clear to enter the lab. It was your usual architecture and style for a lab or office building of the century. "You have two more of your team, right?", I asked.  
  
"Three. Dana's at a medical conference on the East Coast with Ryan," Carter answered. "And Joel and Angela are out of town. So it's just us."  
  
"Which is normally more than enough," Kelsey added.  
  
"I would imagine so." I held out the sonic. "Energy signatures coming from this way."  
  
The halls led to the secure labs of the building. We stepped in and found another half dozen of the things. The Lightspeed team jumped ahead of us this time, energy blasters out and ready. They didn't use their morphers at this time, choosing steady shots instead while Katara's waterbending took care of the one they missed. "Quite impressive," I remarked.  
  
"We can't let you upstage us, can we?", Chad answered with amusement on his features.  
  
"Oh, hopefully not. You're rather the hard act to upstage though." I motioned forward. "This way!"  
  
We moved on to one of the inner labs, an engineering lab. We found a mess there of broken machinery. I narrowed my eyes and looked around. There wasn't anyone present.  
  
"Where did they go?", Kelsey wondered aloud, still holding her blaster ready.  
  
I moved the sonic around. "Hrm. That's a familiar energy trace. Looks like a matter transporter technology. Technology this world's familiar with, I think."  
  
"Can't you trace those?", Liara asked.  
  
"Hrm. I can try. We'll have to return to the TARDIS. But first..." I started scanning around. "I'd like to see what they stole."  
  
The equipment in the room was mostly assembly machinery for whatever new device was being made. Or devices, I should say. I walked around, using the sonic to scan computer equipment and telltale energy signatures. While Carter was likely off getting reports from his superiors, the other two remained with me. "What are you looking for?", Kelsey asked.  
  
"Indications of what it was they stole, precisely," I replied. "To find out what they're up to."  
  
Liara gave me a worried look. "You're thinking it has to do with the Crack, don't you?"  
  
"It usually does," I sighed.  
  
The two Lightspeed Rangers in the room looked at each other. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"A Crack in the Multiverse, Mister Lee, Miss Winslow," I answered. "Six dimensions of space-time split open. I've run into them before and I was looking for another one to examine more closely when I arrived here. I'm not sure why my TARDIS diverted me here, but with my luck, these things are usually related." I walked over to one of the side tables. Several discarded connections were visible and hooked to other computer systems. "A ha. Diagnostic equipment. I believe we've found our stolen technology. Or rather where it was." I ran the sonic over the other equipment. "Hrm. Power measuring systems. Not a power core, though, something else..." I went over to the nearest computer and accessed it directly.  
  
"Wait, Doctor, are you so sure you should be doing that?" Chad stepped up beside me. "That's top secret information."  
  
"Well, I'm sure NASADA will understand when we recover... whatever it is," I answered. "Now... what have we here?"  
  
Carter stepped back in. "Captain Mitchell wants to see us," he said, looking at me directly. "All of us."  
  
"Does he now?" I turned. "That's good, because I want to see him too."  
  
  
  
  
Given their aqua base was destroyed, Captain Mitchell's team had chosen to go a slightly different route in arranging their basing.  
  
Namely, a giant helicarrier about three times the size of SHIELD's best.  
  
Well, calling it a helicarrier is perhaps incorrect. It's more like the _Valiant_ from the Doctor's home universe. The original Doctor, of course, not myself. It has runways for landing aircraft and bays for those that can hover and such. I parked the TARDIS in one, just for the room. Of course, I didn't land it, I just materialized there. More convenient that way.  
  
"I thought you lot got rid of those demon things?", I asked Carter as we went through the ship. "This seems an awfully big investment in technology."  
  
"We thought that, until Vypra came back," he replied. "And when Earth's faced so many threats over the past few years, well, it doesn't hurt to be prepared."  
  
"I do wonder about that. I mean, you Ranger teams, I'd think you'd coordinate more often," I continued. "Not just the occasional team up, but..."  
  
Carter gave me a bemused look before he and his fellows guided us into a waiting wardroom. "Captain, everyone, this is the Doctor," he said as we entered.  
  
Captain Mitchell looked like your standard military man. Dark-suited uniform jacket, a hat, the usual. He nodded toward me from his place at a circular table. "Doctor. A pleasure."  
  
I nodded. By that point I was already noticing the other individuals. No wonder Carter looked so bemused.  
  
Seated to Mitchell's right was an older gentleman in civilian business dress. And to his side were two young men in paramilitary uniforms. I recognized them immediately as Wes Collins and Eric Myers, formerly of the Time Force team in Silver Hills. Beside them was a blond woman in an Air Force uniform.  
  
Down Mitchell's left side were more figures, and I recognized them as former leaders of other Ranger teams. "I am afraid I'm not familiar with all your names," I said, but I did easily recognize the man with the goatee to Mitchell's left. "Mister Oliver, I presume?"  
  
"Doctor Oliver now," was the reply of Tommy Oliver. He stood and offered his hand, and I accepted. "Here are the others." He introduced me quickly to the others: Jason of the original team, TJ of the Turbo and Space teams, and Cole of the most recent team to pop up. I forget which one that was.  
  
"That answers my question, doesn't it?", I said to Carter, who grinned as he took a seat. "And you are...?" I looked to the blond woman beside Eric and the man beside Wes.  
  
"Arthur Collins," the man between Mitchell and Wes answered. "I'm Wes' father."  
  
"Ah. A pleasure. Wes, I do apologize about that missed call. I had a cyborg hive mind's queen drive a drill into my right heart and spent some time recuperating." I noticed them all flinch at that. "My apologies. I hope everything turned out?"  
  
Wes smiled at me and nodded. "Yeah, it worked out in the end. It's alright, Doctor."  
  
I looked to the woman beside Eric. "Major Taylor Earhardt," she answered. "Representing the United States Air Force. And I was the Wild Force Yellow Ranger."  
  
Ah, so that was the name of the most recent team.  
  
"Was? So you... _don't_ have your powers anymore? Hrm."  
  
"If it's ever truly necessary, we'll have them again," Cole pledged.  
  
"I should hope so. Well." I clapped my hands together. "Everyone, these are my Companions, Doctor Liara t'Soni, an Asari xenoarcheologist and by far the oldest being in this room, and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe." I motioned to them in turn and found a seat opposite Mitchell. "So this is some sort of... Power Rangers Command Council?"  
  
"After what happened with the Machine Empire's generals, we decided to pool resources," Captain MItchell explained. "Representatives from each Ranger team are invited and asked to weigh in. We've even built new Zords for the teams that lost their machines."  
  
"Oh really?" My eyebrows went up. "Quite reasonable, I imagine. Anyway, I suppose we should get to business. I came here looking for a Crack in six dimensions of space-time and instead I walk into a distraction by the foot soldiers of that same Empire. I don't like coincidences."  
  
"This isn't the only attack we've seen with Cogs," Tommy said. "Engineering labs across the entire planet have been raided in the last several days. Every time, they're in and out faster than we can respond. We were lucky you were there to get the Lightspeed Rangers to the site so quickly."  
  
"Not quickly enough," I murmured.  
  
"Wait, what are these... 'zords'?", Katara asked.  
  
"Giant robots they pilot," I replied for them. "Sort of like the ones we saw over Kamina City. Just not throwing galaxies at each other in a pocket universe. Bit smaller."  
  
That drew some rather amazed and bewildered looks. I smiled with a little amusement at that. Yes, even this cosmos could be outdone on the stupendous scale.  
  
"Right." Katara folded her arms. "So these Cogs. Can someone control them? Every time I've heard robots mentioned, someone controls them."  
  
"They'd need a commander," Tommy said. "But we're not sure who. We destroyed all of the Machine Empire's generals. And King Mondo and his house are history."  
  
"Perhaps someone replicated their control signal," I proposed. "Someone who's now indulging in wide scale technology theft. Do we know what's being stolen?"  
  
"Various technological items," Mitchell answered. "Given the pattern of the thefts, they're related to..."  
  
"...power generation," I said, interrupting him.  
  
He blinked. "What?"  
  
"Power generation. The item they stole from that lab in Mariner Bay. It was an exotic energy capacitor. Meant to hold ginormous amounts of energy. Stupendous amounts, I mean. Even by the standards of your science."  
  
Mitchell raised his eyebrows. "How did you know that?"  
  
I noted Kelsey and Chad shifting uncomfortably. So I smiled. "I'm a Time Lord, dear Captain. I notice these things." I folded my hands together. "So let's dispense with secrecy. You'd like my help on this and I am frankly perturbed by the timing given my own purpose. I'd like to know what precisely is being stolen."  
  
Mitchell shifted in his seat and looked to the others. Mister Collins nodded to him. "I was working on a new control system to manage energy levels of higher magnitudes. The Lightspeed Air Base runs on it. And the core computer for the program was snatched right out of my labs."  
  
"Control systems for power generation, capacitors..." A holographic display on the table popped up with a press of a button from Tommy. A listing of other devices came up. "Well. There we are."  
  
"That's..." Liara blinked. "Doctor, that kind of power generation technology..."  
  
"Yes. It's rather potent. Presumably it's for a death ray of some sort. Villainous scientists and monsters love their death rays." I leaned forward. "Still. They don't have the power source itself. They're going to need a source of constant power small enough to interface with that kind of material but powerful enough to actually make use of it. And there's not a lot that can do that."  
  
"There is one possibility," Mitchell said. He tapped another key.  
  
A display came up showing a reactor design of some sort. Upon closer inspection I realized what it was. "Ah, some form of hyperspace tap reactor. Presumably salvaged from Astronema's vessel after the invasion?"  
  
"Yeah." TJ nodded.  
  
"The technology went into the _Terra Venture_ ," Mitchell confirmed. "But we couldn't get them as small or as powerful. But according to our experts, this is the only power source on Earth compatible with the kind of machinery that's been stolen."  
  
"I see. And where is it?"  
  
Mitchell was quick with the answer. "A highly fortified military R&D base in a secluded area."  
  
"And in or near a rock quarry, of course," I joked. "Must have those." Upon seeing their confused looks I chuckled. "Don't mind me. I'm an eccentric alien time traveler. Bizarre musings are part of the job."  
  
Liara, bless her heart, facepalmed.  
  
"Anyway, we should consider the facts, gentlemen and ladies." I put my hands together. "Your foe has matter teleportation technology. That facility is not likely to be secure. We need to get there immediately."  
  
"The Air Base is already on the way, but we can only go so fast," Mitchell explained. "We weren't built for speed."  
  
"The new Lightspeed Aerial Zords could make it," Carter proposed.  
  
"So far your unknown enemy has yet to produce anything large enough to warrant a Zord," I pointed out. "But on the other hand, I'm not one to dismiss the usefulness of a giant bipedal robot taller than a skyscraper. So if you want to pilot them in, I can take some of the others and head straight there in the TARDIS."  
  
Carter nodded. "We're still waiting for Dana, Ryan, and Joel to get here, so we'll need other volunteers."  
  
Taylor nodded. "I'll fly one."  
  
"I'll take the other," Eric added.  
  
"Well, I suppose that settles it." I clapped my hands together. "Let's head to the TARDIS."  
  
  
  
The military personnel at the base were most unenthused by our arrival inside their most secure areas. Thankfully, they also knew Tommy and the other Rangers - mostly red ones, I had noticed - and didn't try to shoot me. I prefer not getting shot at, after all.  
  
We were invited to the base command center. "If they transport right in, that's pointless," I said. "We need to be at the reactor."  
  
"I'll go coordinate with the base commanders then," Tommy offered. "The rest of you can watch the reactor."  
  
As was usual for bases with top secret alien technology, the reactor was kept in a cavernous room that was underground and behind heavy vault doors and the like. The reactor itself wasn't terribly large. It was a cylindrical device about ten feet high and with a three foot radius. "Well," I murmured, scanning it with the screwdriver, "that's rather impressive,, isn't it?"  
  
"It's the future of Mankind," Wes said. "Literally."  
  
"Well, you'd know, wouldn't you?", I answered.  
  
"Yeah." I could detect a hint of sadness in his voice.  
  
Cross-time romances. They never work out well if one party has to go home.  
  
"So. Jan and Cami?", he asked.  
  
I frowned. "Cyborg hive mind race. Same one that drilled a hole in my heart. Got them out but..."  
  
"Yeah." Wes shook his head. "Sorry to hear that."  
  
"It's been a bit for me, given my timestream," I answered. "It's not as big a pain as before."  
  
I noticed Liara looking very concerned about something and excused myself to go speak with her. "All of this equipment," she said. "Are you thinking of the same thing?"  
  
"That it's someone meddling with the Crack?" I nodded. "The thought crossed my mind, yes."  
  
"It would be nice to actually get a chance to examine one, wouldn't it?", Liara sighed.  
  
"Yes it would." I looked to Katara, who was staring at the reactor. "So, what's on your mind Katara?"  
  
"These worlds. They're so... strange."  
  
"Strange is relative," I answered. "They'd consider the Benders of your world to be strange and magical, for instance."  
  
"That makes sense, I suppose." Katara sighed. When I saw the tear in her eye I realized what the issue was. "Aang would have loved to see worlds like this."  
  
"I know." I put a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"I shouldn't exist," she continued. I could hear a little bit of a sob to her voice. "I wish I..."  
  
We were interrupted from the soul-searching by an alert signal. " _Intruder alert_ ", said the voice on the intercom. " _We have an intruder alert._ "  
  
"Here we go," I muttered.  
  
Wes, Jason, TJ, and Cole quicky went for their individual devices, and with their customary introductory declarations and flashes of light they were suited up. I noticed TJ was in the blue Space uniform. Presumably it was for greater variety of colors, given the other three were all Reds.  
  
"Why do they have little sculpted mouths on their helmets?", Liara asked.  
  
"Aesthetics, I imagine," I answered.  
  
" _This is Tommy. We have Cogs in the building. It looks like they're attacking anything they can find._ "  
  
"It's a diversion," I answered over the commlink we had set up. "They're diverting attention to come here."  
  
" _It's a tough divers..._ " He was cut off by a grunt of pain and the sounds of fighting. " _Sorry. We're getting hit pretty hard up here. A lot of people will get hurt if we don't get backup._ "  
  
I grimaced. It was a clear distraction. But he was right about. We didn't have the numbers we needed at the moment. I looked to the four Rangers with us. "If a couple of you want to go help him, that's fine."  
  
"Cole and I'll cover it," Jason offered. "The rest of you can stay here."  
  
"Right." I pulled out my sonics and watched them leave. Katara pulled off the top of her water flask.  
  
We didn't have to wait long.  
  
There were several flashes of energy around us and the room filled with Cogs. Quite... a few of them, in fact.  
  
Okay, we were rather outnumbered.  
  
Not that it stopped Wes and TJ. They leapt into battle with enthusiasm, employing their melee weapons and martial arts moves with abandon. Wes pulled out those double-edged short swords his team liked to use and took out an entire line of the machine menaces with one dual swipe, followed by a kick to another one and a slash that sliced that target in half. It was almost like watching a human blender in action.  
  
TJ's hand went to his belt and out came an axe, which seemed to destroy Cogs effortlessly with each hit. He side-stepped one blow, counterattacked with a kick, and used a two-handed swing to cleave the offending Cog shoulder to side. He switched to one-handed swings after he brought out an energy blaster, which fired blue bolts into one gaggle - or would it be scourge? Flock? Parliament? Whatever. - of attacking Cogs that bought him the room to maneuver against his other opponents.  
  
Katara flung her arm outward and the water flew from her bottle with enough force that it drove the Cogs facing us backward. Liara didn't miss a step. A Singularity went off in their midst that caught them all. She swung the other arm outward and a biotic shockwave rippled out and struck the Singularity. All of the Cogs caught in it flew outward, damaged beyond repair.  
  
Given I couldn't disable the things with my sonics, I was reduced to being the defense, protecting my Companions with deflector shields from the sonic disruptor. I used it to absorb several blows against all of us. This worked for maybe thirty seconds as we were pressed inward.  
  
Then I felt something smack down on my back and drive me forward. I turned in time to see several more coming at me and the others. I shouted a warning just in time to my Companions while using the deflector to hold them off.  
  
While Katara and Liara adjusted to our foes from behind, I saw several of the Cogs moving toward the reactor. They were carrying items that were presumably beacons for their matter teleporters. I held the sonic screwdriver out to scramble them and discovered that, unsurprisingly, the beacons were also deadlock sealed. I swear, why is it that everything in this cosmos is deadlock-sealed?  
  
Katara took a blow that sent her flying. The Cogs advanced to attack her and were stopped by a blast of water that froze to ice. I slid over to her and deflected another blow with the disruptor. "So far so good," I muttered. It was mostly a lie. Whoever wanted that reactor was willing to throw everything into the fight to secure it.  
  
Wes fought his way over to the reactor. A well-placed series of kicks and slashes knocked several of the Cogs away. TJ was occupied trying to keep them off our backs.  
  
"There's too many!", Liara shouted. She cried out and fell as one struck her from the side. Her biotics shielded her from further blows for the moment. That bought me time to use the sonic disruptor's kinetic wave to throw them off. Katara rushed over to her and knocked another pair of Cogs away with her water.  
  
As I dashed toward them I was caught in the side of the head and neck by a blow that sent me flying. I hit the ground hard enough to knock the air out of my limbs. The room spun as I looked up toward the gathering Cogs. It spun too much. I couldn't stand.  
  
Just as things looked bad, there was a sudden roar of air. I felt something in the air and my sonic started toning off on its own. I looked up in time to see an opening in space-time appear. A wormhole.  
  
Four figures in white uniforms stepped through it. They had apparently realized what they were getting into because they wasted no time in assuming the pose and reaching for the devices on their wrists. "Time for Time Force!"  
  
"Jen!", Wes called out, sounding quite stunned and happy.  
  
There was the usual light as energy from subspatial domains flooded the area and the four were in their uniforms. They struck the horde of Cogs in unison, kicks and punches and karate chops and whatever other form of martial arts maneuver you can imagine coming to play. As I recovered from the blow, I realized I needed to amend that to include weapons. They were not fooling around.  
  
I let out a groan. "Excellent bloody timing." I looked up in time to see a gloved hand extend itself.  
  
It was TJ. "Need a hand?"  
  
"Oh yes." I allowed the Ranger to get me back to my feet. "Things pack a punch, don't they?", I said.  
  
The fact he was able to take his time to help me up tells you how the battle had gone. The Time Force team, you would have thought they never stopped working together. They went right into synch, using teamwork to scythe their way through the Cogs. The last one fell back from the reactor before being taken down by a shot.  
  
"Well, that was nice timing," I said while checking up on Katara and Liara. They had a couple of bumps but arguably came out of the fighter better than I had.  
  
All of the Rangers demorphed into their normal garb. "What are you lot doing back here?", I asked.  
  
"Looking for you," Jen answered. She walked up to me. "We need your help."  
  
"It seems everybody does these days," I remarked. I wondered why they were looking for me specifically, as if they knew I'd be here, but I held that off in favor of a more general inquiry. "But I shall ask, what with?"  
  
"Time Force's systems are growing haywire," Jen explained. "History is starting to unravel."  
  
"Unravel?" I rubbed at my forehead. Oi. I just finished dealing with one Time Crash, now I had another? "As in... what, a Time Crash deleting your entire timeline?"  
  
"Nothing that bad." The answer was from the green-haired young man.  
  
"That's a relief, just dealt with one of those. Trip, isn't it?"  
  
"Oh, yeah." He nodded. "After what happened last time with Ransik, we found ways to phase shield our headquarters from timeline changes and protect Earth from immediately shifting."  
  
I nodded. Undoubtedly similar to the technology that the Federation's Department of Temporal Investigations employed on its own computer systems. But more advanced, obviously. They did have about six hundred years on Agent Lucsly and his agency. "Ah. Very clever. And very useful for time-based law enforcement."  
  
"So what's wrong?", Wes asked.  
  
"According to our temporal scanners, history is diverging sharply right around this point in time," Jen explained. "So far our Earth hasn't changed, but everything we've seen indicates that all of the civilizations we know of in our part of the galaxy are starting to alter heavily. We're not picking up signals from them or anything indicating life as we know it."  
  
"And we only have a few more weeks, at best, before our defenses fail and Earth gets shifted to the new timeline as well."  
  
By this point I was frowning. And I wasn't the only one. "So, what you're saying is..." TJ brought a hand up. "Something's going to destroy Earth in the next few days?"  
  
"That's what it looks like," Jen answered. She looked at me. "When we detected the TARDIS' arrival in this timeframe we knew we had to talk to you."  
  
I raised my eyebrows. "You can do that?"  
  
She smiled thinly. "My superiors were pretty insistent on it, Doctor."  
  
"Oi, Time Cops," I sighed.  
  
"We need your help to find out what's wrong with the timeline," Jen said. She looked to TJ and Wes. "We need help from everyone."  
  
"Well, understandably so," I replied. "This confirms my fears on this situation. There is something else going on behind these technology thefts." I looked back to the reactor. "This place isn't safe, we're going to need to..."  
  
There was a flash of energy in the room. When it faded a single figure was standing with us. It wasn't any taller than Human standard, but it most definitely wasn't human. It had light beige coloring with white as a secondary color and a headpiece with fins extending diagonally from the cranium. Red eyes, a plate instead of a mouth, and all of the usual look you'd expect for a being from this cosmos. It moved with some exaggeration as it looked toward us. "So," it shrilled, the slightest hints of a female voice to its mechanical tone, "the Power Rangers finally come to fight. I have been looking forward to this."  
  
"Looks like the big bad monster's come out to play." I looked to them. "Which team does this one belong to?"  
  
"It's Tezzla," Wes answered. "She's one of the Machine Empire's surviving Generals."  
  
"I thought we destroyed her on the moon?", TJ asked.  
  
"Fools, you cannot stop the Machine Empire," Tezzla insisted. "With the power and technology now at our disposal, the Earth will fall, and with it the Universe!"  
  
I rolled my eyes. "If I had a pound for every time I heard something like that, I'd... well, I'd still be me, but I'd have quite a lot of extra money."  
  
"Money you don't need," Liara pointed out drolly. She drew in a breath and charged her biotics. The other Rangers morphed again. I wondered how annoying it was to switch back and forth.  
  
"Trip, Lucas, Katie, flank her!", Wes shouted. "Jen, you're with me!" The Time Force Rangers rushed to the offensive. TJ drew his axe and readied himself for any opening.  
  
Tezzla started blocking and sparring with the two lead Time Rangers before she took hits from the sides from the other three. For a moment she stumbled backward, as if unable to withstand the assault.  
  
Just as TJ prepared to move in, there was a burst of energy. I could hear what sounded like an energy weapon, and blasts started throwing the Time Force Rangers backward and leaving them sprawled out. Tezzla stood over them, wielding two short bladed weapons that she had held together.  
  
TJ rushed in. Before he could close the distance he took a blast straight to the chest. Tezzla turned the two joined weapons toward us and energy erupted from them. It was absorbed by a quick biotic field by Liara, who flew backward anyway. I let loose with a full powered kinetic blast. Tezzla shifted slightly, but did not falter.  
  
When she shot at me, I had the deflector ready, but it wasn't enough. The shield shattered and I was hit with such force that I could feel it even through my protected vest. Katara cried out as the blast wave caught her as well and sent us flying.  
  
"You are no match for me now," Tezzla boasted. "The Machine Empire has been _upgraded_! Hahahahaha!"  
  
Oi. Evil laughs. Always with the evil laughs.  
  
"Upgrade this!" The Blue Time Force Ranger, Lucas, lunged forward and drove his sabers into Tezzla. She shrieked and lashed out with her own, sending him flying.  
  
I was sprawled out still and regaining my breath, giving me a nice view of the ceiling, which was like any bland warehouse or lab ceiling with girders and crossbeams and fire suppression systems and...  
  
....of course.  
  
"Katara! Are you alright?!", I shouted over the moan of pain from Lucas, who took another hit. His comrades were getting back up to keep fighting, but when he hit this time bright light surrounded him and he was back in his normal uniform.  
  
"I... I'm fine!", she answered. I looked over to where she was starting to stand. "I'll be fine."  
  
There was another cry. Katie went down. Trip followed her and both demorphed.  
  
"I've got a plan! I need you to be ready!"  
  
Katara nodded at me.  
  
I got up as TJ went down and went back to normal. Wes and Jen fought side by side to hold Tezzla off while I used the opportunity to get into position. They bought just enough time before Tezzla sent them flying, their weapons clattering to the ground before disappeared as they were also forcefully demorphed.  
  
"Oi! Over here!", I shouted.  
  
Tezzla turned to me. "Pitiful Human, what do you think you can accomplish?"  
  
"Well, for one thing, you've got that part wrong," I said. "I'm not a Human. I'm a _Time Lord_. And for all of your upgrades, I am not one whit scared of you." I backed up another step and held the sonic disruptor out. And I held it toward the reactor. "One more step and I short-circuit this beyond repair. Your plan won't work."  
  
That was me invoking Rule Number One, of course. Deadlock seal or not, the reactor was well-built and I couldn't just sabotage it beyond repair so quickly. But Tezzla didn't know that.  
  
Or at least, I hoped she didn't.  
  
"I will destroy you if you dare!", Tezzla roared.  
  
"And it won't change a thing!", I retorted. "So go on then, push me! Push me, you pile of bolts and scrap metal. Even with upgrades, that's all you are. A useless pile of scrap metal welded and bolted together by a useless empire of machines! Oh, you'll fit right well in the scrap heap with Vengix and King Mondo and..."  
  
" _You will not insult the Machine Empire!_ " Tezzla accompanied that shriek with a charge. For her size and all of that rumbling, she was _fast_. I barely got my sonic disruptor over in time to catch the blow with the shield, and it still sent me flying backward. She rushed up to me and swung one of her weapons at me. The collision batted the disruptor from my hand before I could re-establish the shield. Her other hand swept over and caught me in the ribs. Pain exploded despite the protection of the special armored vest that the Carpenters had given me. It was, as usual, the only thing that kept me from getting cut open. I went flying back and hit the ground hard. Before I could get up Tezzla grabbed me by the neck and lifted me up into the air. " _I will break your pathetic organic spine, you...!_ "  
  
I ignored the pain. And the asphyxiation. I held up my left hand and pointed my sonic screwdriver to the ceiling, where I delivered a simple thermal pulse.  
  
Right into the fire suppression sensor.  
  
Water and foam began to descend upon us all I gagged in the crushing grip of the Machine Empire general.  
  
And then the water stopped hitting us.  
  
Tezzla didn't notice this at first. Not until it was too late.  
  
First was the biotic bolt from Liara. It hurt, but it also threw me clear of Tezzla.  
  
Which was when Katara brought a massive column of ice crashing down on her head. Ice shattered and cracked, but most of it remained intact, and was reinforced as Katara bent more water into it and froze it. The result was a column that went almost to the ceiling.  
  
I coughed and tried to keep the foam from getting into my nose and eyes. My neck and throat hurt and my arse hurt worse from all the landings upon it. "Would someone please shut off that bloody foam?", I protested  
  
It stopped a moment later. We all looked toward the entrance. Tommy, Jason, and Cole stood side by side. "There you are," Tommy said.  
  
"That was pretty impressive." Jason nodded at Katara.  
  
"Ah. Thanks," she answered back.  
  
Liara got to my side and helped me up. "Are you alright?"  
  
"Oh, nothing a few hours in the hot tub won't cure," I answered. My voice was still a little hoarse. I looked to our new arrivals. "Everything fine up there?"  
  
They nodded. "We got them all," Tommy confirmed. He looked back to the ice. "So. General Tezzla. I'm not sure how she came back. Eric and Aurico beat her on the moon. She took several direct hits from Eric's Quantum Defender. There's no way she should have survived it all."  
  
A very dark suspicion was entering my mind. "An investigation may be prudent," I advised. "But I think..."  
  
There was a rumbling in the air. And it was accompanied by a loud sound. The sound of a block of ice being shattered from the inside. Ice sprayed over us all, jagged and painful in points.  
  
Tezzla stood triumphant within the remains of the column. "I will not be defeated so easily!", she screamed. "It is time for you to witness the power of the new, _upgraded_ Machine Empire!" She threw up some item she'd taken from one of her internal compartments. "Cogs, _merge!_ "  
  
All of the sudden, the shattered and broken Cogs around the room rushed inward to the spherical item Tezzla tossed upward. It hit the ceiling and broke right through, creating a hole through the floors above and to the open ground of the facility. We all had to run for cover as the ceiling collapsed around the hole.  
  
And the entire time, more and more parts from the Cogs coalesced together. More streams of debris joined as the item got above the level of the surface, drawing in the Cogs the others had defeated topside. The parts shifted and melded and clacked....  
  
"Behold! This is our new power!" Tezzla proclaimed. "The Machine Empire will rule forever!" She hit something on her chest and disappeared in what looked like a burst of teleportation energy.  
  
Above us the mass of destroyed Cog parts was finishing coalescing. It turned into... wait for it... a giant Cog. As in skyscraper sized, and carrying fearsome weapons and other things. It found its footing above us and looked down.  
  
"Oi," I sighed. "A bloody giant robot. Of course."  
  
So much for easy, eh?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The power behind the Machine Empire's new upgrades is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The slight change in formatting is due to a chance in the board I'm C&Ping this from (different BBS software, different formatting).

What's worse than a hostile giant robot?  
  
A hostile giant robot with a deadlock seal, that's what.  
  
The giant robot looked down through the hole that had been created when its core rose through the underground lab. The robotic face was blank of emotion, which of course said nothing about intent. That was proven more definitively a few moments later when it pointed its arm down at us. "Take cover!", I heard one of the Time Force members shout, and everyone fell away before a bolt of energy smashed into the floor. It produced a shockwave that sent everyone to the floor.  
  
"Quick, up here!", Tommy shouted. We all scrambled to our feet. I ran by the reactor and ran the sonic over it again in one last futile attempt to make it useless. After I accomplished that, I joined the others at the stairs, where Tommy had been waiting for us.  
  
The structure shook around us while we journeyed upward. "If we can get somewhere stable I can remotely summon the TARDIS!", I called out.  
  
Unfortunately, we didn't quite find anything stable. Not with the way the building was collapsing around us. "Stay close to me!" The others heeded Liara in the heat of the moment and she generated a powerful biotic field around us that protected us from the debris. It also made us slower as a trade-off, at least until Cole and Lucas took Liara's arms and carried her between them while she concentrated on her biotics.  
  
We got to the safety outside the building. Well, relative safety. Okay, it wasn't any safer, as we now directly faced the giant robot that was demolishing the base, It turned toward us and made mechanical sounds as its weapons came to bear. "I don't think this was the way we wanted to go," Katara noted.  
  
But the truth was we had no other way to go. Not with the building collapsing behind us.  
  
Thankfully, we didn't need to go anywhere else.  
  
Energy blasts struck down from the sky, pulses and beams joined by several rockets. The giant machine stumbled backward and fell its knees. Looking up I could see five shapes fly overhead, each looked like a fairly hefty jet plane that didn't know whether it wanted to be a fighter jet or a bomber-style one. And with the appropriate color coding, of course.  
  
Cole identified them. "The Lightspeed Aerial Zords!"  
  
More energy fire lashed up at them as the Super-Cog regained its footing. They maneuvered around the fire to reduce the number of hits, although they did clearly take some. They made another pass, sending dust into the air with a few missed shots and their hits creating gouts of flame and molten material from the Super-Cog. Or would it be "MegaCog"? don't look at me, I don't handle nomenclature in these worlds.  
  
As they turned again, though, the shapes of their planes started to shift. They moved together in mid-air and began merging in a familiar style, two forming the arms and two forming the legs with the red one becoming a chest, and a uni-browed two-eyed humanoid robot head slid up into position with a crackle of power. "Rather impressive, I suppose," I murmured. I frowned. "But that's not the only thing going on. We need to get back into that vault."  
  
"The building's not safe," Liara pointed out  
  
"That's why we come in through the roof," I answered, running toward the opening in the ground. The newly formed Megazord - presumably with some flashier name - generated a gun on one arm and a blade in the other and started blasting the MegaCog and getting blasted back. The fight was dangerously close, but at this scale, we'd have to be outside the base to be outside the "dangerously close" zone.  
  
When we got to the hole in the ground I looked around, hoping to find some water. Alas, there was none. "Katara, can you bend the water from down there to give us an ice slide?"  
  
"I've got a better idea," Liara said. She jumped right in. I looked down to watch her biotics generate and slow her descent. She hit the ground with a roll and looked back up.  
  
Katara was already jumping as well. She moved her arms in mid-air pulled up the ice shards from the broken column as well as the resulting bits of meltwater. This created an ice slide midway down that caught her and brought her more gently to the vault surface.  
  
I was preparing to jump when the decision was made for me, courtesy of a miss by one or the other of the giant combatants. The shockwave sent me in. I cried out in surprise and startlement as the ground of the vault started rushing up to meet me. Said rush slowed and a tugging sensation pulled at me. Biotic energy absorbed my gravitational inertia and I was gently let onto the ground.  
  
When we turned, there were a handful of Cogs busily finalizing the beacons for the teleport device to snatch the reactor. Liara threw a Singluarity that caught half of them, which were struck and knocked offline by Katara's icicles. She made another movement and a large chunk of ice became water again, sloshing in the grip of her lifeforce and will as she slung it around and used it to knock the rest over. "Tezzla does love her diversions," I remarked, holding up my sonics. "Anything else?"  
  
Liara and Katara started looking at our surroundings. "i don't see anything..." Liara turned her head back to the reactor. Maybe we should...."  
  
An energy blast struck the ground between them, creating a shockwave that sent them flying and nearly knocked me over. They landed with grunts and cries of pain. I found myself facing Tezzla. "You didn't teleport out," I remarked. "Some form of stealth?"  
  
"The upgrades we have enjoyed make us _invincible_ , foolish flesh creature."  
  
"Upgrades from where?", I asked. I held up the sonic disruptor and activated its shield. "Who?"  
  
"Allies. A force that, under my command, will herald the rebirth of the Machine Empire."  
  
Things began to click. "You've been in contact with something. Something beyond this world. Something through a tear in space-time, isn't it?"  
  
Tezzla laughed. "What it is, organic, is irrelevant. You have lost."  
  
I kept the sonics up. "That remains to be seen."  
  
"It will clear to all, soon enough." She caused her two blades to meet and release an energy discharge. It slammed into my deflector shield and tore the sonic disruptor from my grasp. My hand numbed from proximity to the attack's impact. "Oh, very soon, fleshling insect."  
  
I might have asked more, but there was a loud sound from above. I looked up to see the Aerial MegaZord or whatever it was tilting backward, presumably after taking a terrible hit. And I suddenly had a very bad feeling where it was falling. "Let's go!", I shouted to Katara and Liara. They were still recovering from the hits they took, so I helped them up as quickly as they could get to their feet and pulled them along toward the wall. I turned back in time to see Tezzla stand beside the reactor and hit a button on her arm. She and the reactor disappeared in a burst of light.  
  
And then the Aerial MegaZord came crashing through the roof.  
  
It didn't land on us.  
  
It _did_ cause the rest of the roof to collapse on top of us.  
  
I held up the sonic disruptor to use it as an umbrella, giving it enough power and size to cover us all. I braced the disruptor so the kinetic forces acting against it were distributed through my torso and not just my shoulder. It allowed me to hold it until the collapse stopped.  
  
Of course, we were trapped inside.  
  
I regulated my breathing carefully throughout this time, trying to preserve air. The rubble above us was too much weight to dig out of. Even a slight shifting might collapse the pocket we were in and crush us. And the confined space was too small to summon the TARDIS.  
  
In short, we weren't getting out until we were pulled out.  
  
Some time passed. Time in which I thought about things. The Cracks. These circumstances. My own. I was bruised and battered and wondered if this would ever get better. This fate, it seemed, of having to deal with the worst of the worlds I visited.  
  
Not just those worlds. Beings from the home cosmos of the Doctor were showing up with disturbing frequency now, in conjunction with the Cracks. This circumstance fit that pattern. Sure, there could be nasties out in _this_ galaxy or universe that were providing technology to the Machine Empire, but the timing and effects felt a bit off.  
  
I heard rubble shifting and opened my eyes. Light started to leak in. "Doctor! Doctor, are you in here?!", I heard a voice shout. Cole, I thought.  
  
"Down here!", I responded. "We're down here!"  
  
For several more moments I could hear more debris shifting and more light shifting through. Finally one last stone disappeared and I was looking up at Cole and a Red Ranger helmet. Carter's, given the lack of a mouth. "Take them" I said, indicating my Companions. Carter pulled Katara out and Cole got Liara. Tommy and Jason, also still in their Ranger forms, came up behind them and helped me out. My moving out caused the rubble to collapse into the area I'd been, hence my persistent use of the field.  
  
Once I was out I put away the disruptor and brushed some of the dust off. "Tezzla got the reactor?", Tommy asked.  
  
"Yes, I'm afraid so." I looked up at an evening sky. Far above us, the Lightspeed Aerial Base was hovering. "That large robot?"  
  
"We got it," Carter confirmed. "It put up a big fight for an oversized bot like that. The Time Force team brought in their own Megazord to help us finish it off."  
  
Jason gave a shake of his head at that. "I don't remember Cogs ever being this tough before." From the look on his face, it was evident Tommy agreed with him.  
  
"Yes. Well, I believe they're getting help." I shook more rubble from my hair while I leaned over and checked on Katara. She had some bruises and a cut on one arm from falling debris. Liara was already coming to with the help of medics in the Lightspeed support personnel uniforms.  
  
"From who?", Carter asked.  
  
"Something from outside your world," I replied. "And to learn any more, I would need to examine the Crack." I held out the TARDIS remote and summoned it. "I imagine your Captain Mitchell will want a debriefing first, but we are honestly running out of time. Now that Tezzla has that reactor, she has everything she needs to do whatever she's planning."  
  
"Give me a few minutes to talk to the others," Tommy said.  
  
"You'll have them. I need to check the systems and see if they got enough information on Tezzla's transportation systems. It might tell us more about what we're up against."  
  
He nodded and turned off his morphed suit or whatever you want to call it. I walked up to Liara and Katara and opened the TARDIS door. "You should both get some rest. You'll need it."  
  
Katara nodded and walked in.  
  
"Not exactly exploring new things, is it?", Liara asked.  
  
"No. No it's not." I sighed. "And I have a bad feeling about this one, Liara."  
  
"Sometimes I wonder if we're going over our heads with some of these cases." Liara's words were joined by the gentle rattling of our steps on the TARDIS walkway grating.  
  
"It does get tricky quite a bit, doesn't it?", I lamented. I pulled over one of my status screens attached to the TARDIS controls, rotated it a little, and started flipping through sensor readings.  
  
"I do understand why it needs to be done, though," assured Liara. "And why you need to do it."  
  
"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "You do, don't you?"  
  
"It... justifies you, I think. It justifies all of this." She motioned around the TARDIS. "You would feel worse about it if you weren't helping others."  
  
"Quite possibly." I tapped a couple of keys. As much as I enjoyed debating with Liara, the problem at hand was drawing all of my attention. "Hrm."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"These energy bands. It's a transport signature, yes. A specific one. Let me check something..." I started comparing the signature's appearances, which all coincided with their visible uses by Tezzla and her forces, and running it through my databases on things like instantaneous matter transportation.  
  
By the time I got a result, the door to the TARDIS opened. The Time Force team entered with Jason and TJ behind them. "It looks like you haven't changed the place a lot, Doctor," Katie remarked as they looked around. "But you got yourself new threads?"  
  
"Quite a few things have changed for me since you last visited." I turned toward them. I couldn't keep the intense look off my face.  
  
Jason crossed his arms. Not in a bad way, just as a usual pose he took. "Doctor?"  
  
"I've determined the kind of matter transporter Tezzla is using," I replied. "And it's not good news."  
  
"Really?" Trip shrugged. "Wouldn't that be great news? I mean, knowing their weaknesses and all that stuff?"  
  
"Because of what it is, and what it comes from," I answered. "Tezzla is using transmat technology. And the only cosmos where transmat technology of that sophistication has been developed is the home cosmos of Gallifrey." I shook my head slightly. "Tezzla has an ally from my home cosmos. An advanced one."  
  
TJ held a hand up. "So what you're saying, Doctor, is that this fight is going to be a whole lot harder than you thought?"  
  
"Oh yes," I answered. "Quite a bit harder than I had earlier imagined."  
  
They looked at each other. "That's fine," Wes said. "We're up to it."  
  
"Of course you are." I snapped my fingers and the TARDIS door closed. "Time to go, everyone. We haven't a moment to lose!"  
  
  
  
  
I'm not sure how it works, but you can breathe on the Luna of the Power Rangers' home cosmos.  
  
I mean, sure, you can breathe in Uatu's home on the Luna of that cosmos as well, but that's because Uatu likes to be courteous to his guests. But this? I can only imagine the reasons why. Unfortunately, it wasn't time for scientific curiosity.  
  
Using the TARDIS' scanner records to triangulate the various transport signals, I was able to narrow our destination to one portion of the moon, near the Sea of Tranquility. Scanning for the energies of a Crack proved more difficult, as I told the others. That netted me a confused look from Liara. "You've never had problems finding Cracks before."  
  
"No, I haven't." I sighed. "Which means that Tezzla has technology that can dampen the Crack's energy signature. Another reason why we need to get this done and now."  
  
"Maybe we should go get some of the other Rangers," TJ suggested.  
  
"The larger our numbers, the more likely we are to get noticed," I pointed out. "Better to slip in and out. I'm turning on the stealth mode to sneak us up to wherever Tezzla is hiding." I looked back at the monitor. Some work on the energy signatures and the scanner systems and... "There we are," I remarked. "Looks like our moonbase." I pointed to it.  
  
Jason clearly recognized it. "That's near Lord Zedd's old castle."  
  
"Indeed..." I started twirling dials and pulling things and the like. "I'm going to set us down just inside of the place. Once we're out we'll have to make our way to where Tezzla is setting up her devices. Given my examination of the reactor, I've determined its energy signature, and I've rigged these scanners..." I reached under my console and brought them out. "....to home in on them."  
  
Liara quickly brought up her omni-tool, confirming it was set to scan for the same. Just as my sonic would. I only had enough scanners for the Rangers, leaving Katara without. But she'd be with me anyway. I had something else in mind with Katara.  
  
"Are we ready?," Wes asked me.  
  
I checked my sling under my jacket. My sonic disruptor was secure. "I'd say so," I replied.  
  
"Right."  
  
And you can guess what happened. They did their poses as Wes called out the " _Time for Time Force!_ " battle cry and hit their morphers. Jason pulled out one of those belt buckle morphing things and did the " _It's Morphing Time!_ " one, and TJ said "Let's rock it!" as his cry, which I liked the most because it sounded the least silly. No puns, no melodrama, just a declaration of intent.  
  
Katara looked confused. "Do they do that all of the time?"  
  
"I believe so," I answered. "Something of a ritual, I think. Just like the spandex. Or self-assembling nano-fiber formed with an inter-cellular shape memory alloy, if one wants to get technical."  
  
With the seven now ready for battle in their respective spandex - sorry, I am not going to repeatedly refer to it as a self-assembling nano-fiber formed with inter-cellular shape memory alloy, no matter how fiercely sweet little K glares at me - I went up to the TARDIS door and threw it open to step into the empty side room. Everyone filed out of the invisible TARDIS, which I locked behind us once everyone was out. There was no way I was letting Cogs get into my TARDIS, after all.  
  
"This way," Trip whispered, taking the lead and keeping low. Not that it'd work well given the bright color schemes of the Ranger uniforms. Power Rangers were not exactly about stealth, after all. They were about being loud and dramatic.  
  
Which is why I was not surprised when the first room we arrived at had an entire gaggle - yes, definitely going with gaggle - of Cogs that easily spotted the Rangers. They let out their own weird mechanical battle cries and attacked.  
  
"Doctor, keep going!", Wes shouted. "We'll catch up when we're done with them!"  
  
"Agreed!", I replied. "Liara, Katara, come along!"  
  
We raced further into the Machine Empire base.  
  
And time was not on our side.  
  
  
  
  
Where do villains get these expansive bases? Seriously? This is insane. You'd think the tattered remnants of a mighty evil empire would have to settle for something smaller.  
  
The sterile silver and gray corridors were monotonous too. But when you're dealing with machines, I suppose that's not too surprising, isn't it?  
  
"This way!", I shouted, following the sonic screwdriver.  
  
"Energy readings up ahead," Liara said. "More of those machines."  
  
The junction we were heading for was indeed full of Cogs. I held up the sonic screwdriver and used it to puncture a hole in the pipes over their head. Angry steam hissed out onto them and they began to write from the heat damaging their bodies.  
  
The steam suddenly coalesced, becoming a stream of water as it struck them. And it further hardened to ice, sticking them in place. I pulled out the sonic disruptor and used a discharge to send them flying out of our way.  
  
"And I didn't even have to use my biotics," Liara said while we ran through the area. "I could start to like this."  
  
"I've always felt bad about having to call upon your talents so often," I answered.  
  
"Not that it stopped you," Liara pointed out. She was smiling.  
  
"Indeed not."  
  
We continued on through the gray halls. Katara was trailing water behind her hands, using it to form ice blades to slice through Cogs that tried to stop us. I asked her, "Katara, how are you doing?"  
  
"Fine," she answered. "I'm feeling stronger than usual."  
  
I nodded. We were, after all, on the Moon. Which was, on her world, the source of Waterbending power. That she was stronger was no surprise at all.  
  
My sonic's light picked up speed in its blinking. "We're getting close."  
  
"And so are they," Liara added. "More energy signatures ahead."  
  
When we stepped out into what appeared to be the main chamber of the facility, I could see what she meant. While there weren't as many Cogs as I thought there might be, there were enough to make winning extraordinarily difficult without Ranger backup.  
  
With Tezzla there, it made it impossible.  
  
"You're just in time, Time Lord!", Tezzla declared. "The rise of the Machine Empire is nearly complete!"  
  
I surveyed what was present. The reactor, of course. Connected to other various things, and altogether hooked to what my sonic found to have the power signature of a transmat device.  
  
Which confirmed what she was doing.  
  
"You're expanding the transmat's power supply," I said. "You're going to use it to transport large quantities of matter through the Crack."  
  
"Indeed. My allies have promised me more than enough resources to restore the Machine Empire, starting with the destruction of your puny Earth!"  
  
I almost facepalmed. "You are _idiotic_! The way you set this up, there is no method to allow you to control what comes through. You're opening the door and letting the other side send through whatever they want!"  
  
"The other side are fellow machines who seek the same triumph as we."  
  
That didn't sound good. I looked over to Katara and to Liara and nodded. My code for them to throw everything they had to the Cogs in front of us. Above all else, I _had_ to break through to the reactor and stop it. Biotic energy and blades of water and ice lashed out, giving me an opening in their lines that I ran through. I dodged one attacker by shifting to his side and used a narrow kinetic charge to the side of its head to blast the machine's head off. My deflector setting let me plow through and re-direct several further attacks as I neared the reactor. Behind me a cry came and I looked back long enough to see Katara fall to the ground from a blow. Liara moved over to cover her.  
  
That left me facing Tezzla. She took out those blades of her's and smacked them together. Energy lashed out and overwhelmed my deflector. I had already been moving to the side, so the main result was just being flipped around. I hit the ground, rolled to my feet, and hit Tezzla with a kinetic blast. She stumbled backward before firing again, which I managed to dodge. A growl of frustration came from the machine and she charged me with her weapons up. I caught one swing with my sonic disruptor's field and then the second with the disruptor itself. An angry clang and tremor made it clear the disruptor couldn't take that kind of punishment repeatedly.  
  
Yet it had to as Tezzla pushed harder against me. "You cannot match my strength," she said.  
  
She was right of course.  
  
Which was why I hadn't planned to.  
  
"I'm more of a thinker, honestly," I said. "I don't go for winning by brute force."  
  
Tezzla made a confused sound... and then she howled in rage.  
  
Katara was standing beside the reactor. The Cerberus-made stealth device I'd slipped her before we left the TARDIS was inactive again, while behind us the place where she'd fallen was replaced by a holographic projector. "Stop!", Tezzla shouted  
  
But she was too late.  
  
Katara attached the device I'd given her to the reactor. I pulled my sonic screwdriver up and used it, triggering the device. It took over the control systems for the reactor and locked them up, forcing the reactor into low power standby mode.  
  
"No!", Tezzla shrieked. She pushed hard enough that I went flying and hit the ground hard. "I will not be denied! The Machine Empire must..."  
  
Katara's arms moved in a fluid motion and spiraled water around Tezzla. Not just around, but _into_ , slipping it into every crevice in her metal body. Tezzla cried out in frustration as the water froze to ice, seizing up her joints. "How... is this possible?", Tezzla protested.  
  
"I'm a Waterbender," Katara replied, "and this is the Moon." There was a look of grim satisfaction on her face. "You should give up."  
  
That still left the Cogs, who weren't about to give up. And who were increasing in number, summoned back to face us by Tezzla. Presumably by remote. "You insist upon drawing this out?", I asked Tezzla.  
  
"I am too close to stop now, Time Lord!"  
  
I sighed and picked up my sonic disruptor. Sometimes I really hate this cosmos. Deadlock seals and all. I was letting my mind race as I tried to figure out how to break down these bloody things without running for it.  
  
And then just to make my day worse, the Cogs merged again.  
  
Not into one huge giant robot, obviously. Tezzla didn't want one of those stomping around in here with all of her sensitive equipment. But five or six would combine into one "Super Cog" about ten to twelve feet high and with a whole lot of extra mass on their limbs and torsos. Mass that seemed to become weapons.  
  
"Oh bugger," I sighed. I brought up the sonic disruptor in time to absorb several energy blasts with its deflector. Liara hurled a biotic charge that actually knocked one on its arse. I held back the disruptor for a moment and started tinkering with it. "Katara, do you have any more water?", I asked.  
  
"All of it is keeping that big one frozen," she answered.  
  
"Then just stay behind me, I'll try to give you cover." I had to jump for it with her to avoid a burst of energy. "I need time!"  
  
"I'm a little busy here!" Liara was pressed indeed, having to keep her biotic defenses up against several blasts from converging directions.  
  
I looked back and realized how bad things were. Because even as we were trapped fighting the Super Cogs, Tezzla was starting to heat up. "Katara, can you keep her from melting the ice?"  
  
"I can try," Katara said, but I could see it wouldn't be easy. Eventually the heat would overwhelm her ability to keep the water frozen, even with the Moon augmenting her power.  
  
"That's go..." I was rudely interrupted by a stray blast from one of the Super Cogs A blast that threw me to the side and knocked the sonic disruptor from my hand. I hit the ground hard and would have suffered cracked ribs, possibly, if not for my magically-enhanced vest. The world spun for a dangerous moment, during which another of the Super Cogs was tracking me with its weapons.  
  
It was promptly taken down by blasts of energy weapons. As the world slowed its spin I watched Jason and TJ close the distance and use their melee weapons on the nearest Super Cog. TJ's axe knocked off a gun attached to its shoulder and Jason's blade sliced open the actuators controlling its left leg. The thing twisted and knocked TJ to the side with a swing of its arm, opening it up for an attack from Lucas, who blasted it in the back. Jen closed the distance with her sabers and started slicing away at another.  
  
"Hey Doc!" Trip appeared over me and extended a hand. I took it and let him pull me up. "You okay?"  
  
"A bit bruised," I admitted. "Doing well?"  
  
"Well enough. You couldn't believe how many of these Cogs are in the building."  
  
"You might be surprised," I answered drolly. I looked over to where Katara, covered by Liara, was still struggling to keep the water inside Tezzla frozen. "We need to stop Tezzla from..."  
  
Trip grabbed me and pulled me, which saved me from getting blasted. I grumbled to myself about the entire irritation of the thing while going for the sonic disruptor. I scooped it up from the floor. The experience brought to mind the thought that I really should put a hand loop on it some time.  
  
Trip had returned to battle and joined the other Time Force Rangers. Katie had teamed up with Liara, leaving Trip to rejoin Lucas while Jen and Wes faced down a third Super Cog and Jason and TJ finished off the one they'd been fighting. They did so with panache and style; TJ got in close and used a low slice to take off the Cog's leg, unbalancing it and allowing Jason to flip over one shot from it and bury his weapon in its chest. The two seemed to pose out of habit as it toppled over and exploded.  
  
Nearby Jen somersaulted over the enemy she was facing, forcing it to turn and opening its side to a slash from Wes. He deftly dodged a retaliatory swing of an army that Jen promptly sliced off at the elbow. They twisted around each other in perfect sync and drove their sabers, four altogether, into the Super Cog's torso and neck. It sparked, let out a metallic groan, and fell backward before exploding as well.  
  
Lucas landed a sort of jump kick - a snap kick or something? - onto his foe and used his sabers to slice away one of its arms. He ducked under the other arm and Trip jumped over him, planting his sabers into the Super Cog's shoulders to destroy the guns there. He balanced himself on those weapons and jumped upward, pulling them out in the same motion. He flipped in mid air and brought the blades down into the Super Cog's back just as Lucas drove his into the machine's front. The result, once they jumped away, was the usual sparking heralding an explosion.  
  
While the others moved on to a few of the remaining Super Cogs, I had time to see Liara and Katie with their foes. Liara was wearing herself down with rapid shifting of offense to defense and back. Her biotic attacks drove the Cogs backward whenever they tried to get too close to her while her defense let Katie fall back where she had to. She darted in, blades slashing, and then darted back to the safety of Liara's biotic field before a counter-attack could land. When she was given an opening, she used it to put a saber right through the chest of one of the Super Cogs, disabling it, and turned back to face the other. Liara generated a protective field and absorbed another series of blasts, opening Katie up to jump over her and slash across its torso. This opened up the sensitive internals for Liara to throw a singularity into. The dark matter singularity tore up the interior of the Super Cog, destroying it. Katie made a little flourish with her sabers and Liara, not really getting into the spirit of things, breathed out a sigh and slumped a little from exertion.  
  
And where was I during this? I was trying to keep the other Super Cogs from blasting Katara to bits. I had to keep moving the sonic disruptor to cover her from fire, and I got rather singed in the process.  
  
In rapid succession the Rangers tore through the remaining Super Cogs, jumping and striking as needed. It was an artistically impressive display of prowess, indeed. What you'd expect from Power Rangers.  
  
"I... I can't...", Katara said. I turned to face her and Tezzla. She was focused intently on the Machine General, who was starting to glow from the sheer heat she was giving off. "She's made it too hot."  
  
"Let it go then," I said.  
  
Katara did and slumped slightly from her exertions. Tezzla let out a laugh as her limbs started to move. "Did you really think you could..."  
  
Before she could finish she went flying onto her belly. Behind her Wes and Jen stood together, weapons ready. "It's over, Tezzla," Wes announced. "You've lost."  
  
"Not yet I haven't!", the Machine General retorted. She got back to her feet and was again hit from behind, this time by Lucas and Trip. She whirled around and swung at them with her blades. They dodged and Jason and TJ raced in, weapons slashing, and Tezzla cried out as one of her arms dropped off at the shoulder. She brought the other arm up and tried to hit TJ, but Katie intercepted the strike with her crossed sabers. Liara mustered her strength and threw out a pulse of biotic energy that sent Tezzla flying.  
  
And not to be left out, I was ready when she recovered, and delivered the _coup d'grace_. The kinetic blast was set to such a narrow width that it was almost like a bullet. Or an invisible sledgehammer.  
  
Tezzla's remaining arm went flying off.  
  
"Yeah!", Lucas shouted. "That was great!"  
  
I almost agreed as they celebrated, but I stopped when I realized the sound coming from Tezzla wasn't any moaning or feedback.  
  
It was _laughter_.  
  
"Organic fools," she cackled, and I was already turning toward the reactor. Where, from the ruins of one of the Super Cogs, one Cog had reassembled itself and was reaching for the override device.  
  
"Stop!", I shouted. "Stop it!" I brought my sonic disruptor up.  
  
Liara threw out a biotic pulse. A couple of the others from Time Force reacted quickly enough to grab their blasters and shoot the Cog.  
  
....just as its hands smashed the override device.  
  
The reactor surged to life again. "Foolish Rangers! You cannot stop me!" Tezzla's shoulders shifted and... her arms shot up and met them, restoring their connections. She blasted Lucas in the back before he could move, and the others jumped for cover. When Katara threw a barrage of ice at her, Tezzla retorted with an energy blast that Liara had to intercept with her biotic field.  
  
I, meanwhile, had gone to the reactor to try to reclaim control. But the override device was damaged beyond repair. And the various systems Tezzla tied together were, you guessed it, deadlock sealed.  
  
I turned to my last option. The one I didn't want to try. I held up the sonic disruptor and prepared a kinetic charge that would smash the cables linking the reactor to the capacitor. The result would probably overload the reactor, it could possibly even destroy us all. But if I didn't, then Tezzla would succeed.  
  
I didn't hesitate. I hit the activation key immediately.  
  
....and the disruptor exploded in my hand.  
  
Not from what I did, mind you, but from being shot by Tezzla.  
  
The explosion threw me on my back. I let out a pained "oof" as I landed and looked up to see my burned hand tremor as it surged with hot pain. Which was a good sign, I suppose; it meant my nerves survived the explosion. Blood was seeping around plentiful shrapnel wounds and my body was reporting a few similar wounds on my neck, face, and the bits of my torso that weren't protected by a magically-enhanced Kevlar-backed dress vest.  
  
Oh, and, Tezzla's systems finished coming back online.  
  
I hadn't moved quickly enough. We hadn't. It was too late.  
  
"Yes!", Tezzla shrieked. "The time of the Machine Empire has come! The universe will be ours!" She walked toward one end of the room, batting away the Rangers as she did. Katara froze one of her arms before being thrown away by a near-miss exploding behind her. Liara threw a biotic pulse that stopped Tezzla briefly and barely got her field back up in time to stop the counter-attack, which still sent her flying. Tezzla kept going, although not to turn things on. She used a remote system to activate the transmat device.  
  
All around us, things began changing. The central chamber we were in became wider, higher, as the transmat signal replaced the Machine Empire base with something else. Still gray, still so very sterile, with deep and dark corners on the levels above us and around us.  
  
And far more recognizable.  
  
My blood went cold.  
  
"What's happening?", TJ asked.  
  
"They're transmatting an entire facility through the Crack!", I replied. I still hadn't seen said Crack, mind you, but it was possible that it was underground, or simply covered in some way.  
  
Ahead of us, in front of Tezzla, several figures coalesced into existence, courtesy of the transmat. "At last! I have done as I promised," she boasted. "Now the Machine Empire will be triumphant. As your first action, I command you to _destroy the Power Rangers!_ " She pointed back to us. " _Destroy them and their allies!_ "  
  
I saw the figures.... and my stomach fell to the soles of my feet.  
  
" _You presume to command us?_ ," a mechanical voice demanded.  
  
"I have done as you wished. I have brought you through the tear. You owe the Machine Empire your allegiance!" There was something in Tezzla's voice as she made her demand. Perhaps she realized that things were not going to go according to plan.  
  
The figures didn't move. " _You desire a reward?_ "  
  
"I _demand_ more! You were supposed to serve the Machine Empire! That is why I brought you through!"  
  
Behind me the Rangers were getting back up. "What are they?", Wes asked. I knew he was directing that at me.  
  
Before I could answer, the mechanical voice answered Tezzla. " _You shall have a reward._ " The figures shifted. And I already knew what was coming next. " _You will die quickly._ "  
  
They opened fire. All of them.  
  
Tezzla's death shriek filled the air as an explosion vaporized her.  
  
"What _are_ those things?", TJ asked me. The other Rangers moved up beside us, as confused as he was.  
  
I took in a breath and swallowed. "Monsters," I answered.  
  
And then I swallowed again to get the word out. That horrible, horrible word.  
  
I couldn't keep the disgust out of my voice when I said the name.  
  
" ** _Daleks_**."  
  
The five Daleks moved forward into the light of the central chamber, at least as it was now. I saw them and... oh bloody hell. Bloody Narrativium. It had to be. They weren't just Daleks, they were New Paradigm Daleks. White, blue, red, orange, and yellow.  
  
I'll say it again. Bloody Narrativium. Irony striking, that sort of thing.  
  
I looked up through the dome that now topped the chamber. Outside, in the starlit sky of the Moon, I saw shapes appearing. Dozens of them, joined by several massive ones given the distance and how large they still managed to be. My jaw dropped as I realized what this was.  
  
_An invasion fleet._  
  
The white one spoke, the two lights on its head lighting up with each syllable. " _This universe now belongs to the Daleks. All other species will be EXTERMINATED._ "  
  
The Daleks flanking the white one started chanting the usual mantra. " _Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!_ "  
  
The white one joined in.  
  
" _Exterminate!_ "  
  
....and then other voices did, with that same electronic cadence.  
  
" _EXTERMINATE!_ "  
  
Lights came on above and around us, in the shadows of the central chamber, in rhythm to the syllables to their chant.  
  
" _EXTERMINATE!_ "  
  
Dozens of lights.  
  
" ** _EXTERMINATE!_** "  
  
_Hundreds of them._  
  
" ** _EXTERMINATE!_** "  
  
"Doctor..." Liara stepped up beside me. Her voice was a low whisper that I could barely hear despite how close she was. "How do we stop them?"  
  
I swallowed. I decided to go for complete honesty.  
  
"I'm not sure we can."  
  
And the chant continued.  
  
" ** _EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!...._** "  
  
**_To Be Continued...._**  


 

 

 


End file.
